Pet trade...
- Thread starter kinyonga
- Start date
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Poor chameleons. I hope more Malagasy realize that it’s not sustainable to sell away all of the chameleons.
Lindasjackson
Chameleon Enthusiast
This is so sad and troubling! Not much we can do except refuse to buy wild caught chameleon!
Lindasjackson
Chameleon Enthusiast
They’re going to regret the fact that eventually their children won’t have any chameleons in the wild to experience!
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Unfortunately, as the article says, it is a very poor nation and poverty gives many no other choices. It’s very easy to stand up for your values when your and your family’s bellies are full and you have a roof over your heads. Taking advantage of those in such poverty should be a crime.
So using Parson’s as an example, while difficult to breed in captivity, it isn’t impossible as some dedicated breeders have shown. While I don’t know enough to say that all chameleons can be captive bred, I’m sure if more patience and dedication were given it would surely be possible for many other species.
With the exception of just enough to add fresh bloodlines, there is no reason for panthers to be taken from the wild.
Had my life taken a different path, I’d probably be chaining myself to trees to try and stop razing forests.
Great article and video..
Filled in the blanks about different species being available over the last 30 years. But, I have noticed when some (not all) have a window they are available in the pet trade.
With that in mind!!!!!
There were never chameleons made in captivity so someone had to want and then pay.. GUILTY here!
And sorry to say--- If any bearded pygmy's become available-- I might just snatch them up.. I had great success years ago and actually loosing interest was the reason I gave them up.. DARN!!!! 1 regret of a few in life but we don't know what the future will bring.
Filled in the blanks about different species being available over the last 30 years. But, I have noticed when some (not all) have a window they are available in the pet trade.
With that in mind!!!!!
There were never chameleons made in captivity so someone had to want and then pay.. GUILTY here!
And sorry to say--- If any bearded pygmy's become available-- I might just snatch them up.. I had great success years ago and actually loosing interest was the reason I gave them up.. DARN!!!! 1 regret of a few in life but we don't know what the future will bring.
Lindasjackson
Chameleon Enthusiast
I agree. When your hungry enough or your children are crying for hunger, you’ll do anything! I wish there were other ways for them to earn money. We can’t judge we can only pray. It pains me to see wild animals in cages but I guess we’d never experience some animals if they weren’t in captivity. I can’t imagine going my whole life and not seeing a Jackson’s Cham or a panther or veiled or many others I love as well as elephants and giraffes etc! I’m just sad they have to suffer for us!
Last week or 2 on the forum was the idea that in 10 years they would work on the deforestation.. 10 years? Why not now since in 10 years there might not be any forest... (that was me thinking out loud). Plus, that gives the greedy developers time to finish their work.. They don't care about chameleons. (me thinking out loud again).. Plus, the 1000's of other animal species native to M. that will no longer exist or be discovered. JMHO------ Done-- blood pressure rising.. Ha ha Just kidding!
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
I know, right! Why wait? I think it was back in the 80’s or so that there was a 20 year plan (details are hazy) to eliminate cfc’s from aerosol sprays to help save the ozone layer. A lot of damage can be done in 10 or 20 years, as we’re seeing.
Motherlode Chameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
This was a good Monga Bay article about Malagasy chameleons. Exports of any exotic should be limited, my opinion no endangered species belongs in the reptile hobby trade. There is some positives to the issues brought up by this article.
One most chameleon species have got a high fecundity (an agriculture term and was talked about in the article) when a 1.0 individual is collected from the wild from a gravid 1.2 the individual is replaced by a theoretical 10-60 babies in a certain transect area. Rather than a chameleon completely remove from a population. Then some of those babies reach maturity and replace or more than replace the collected chameleon. Some species of chameleons can handle being collected and some cannot. More studies on the subject have to be done. Furcfer pardalis has shown that that species can handle being collected over the past 30 years.
Second now that Madagascar has a complete quota system. When/If a chameleon a chameleon species is being negatively collected from the hobby to the point of becoming an IUCN listed endangered sub species. That species quota can be made a remove or stopped exported as a CITES quota species. That stopping harm to overly threatened populations.
Third all these activities provides jobs for an impoverished nation. If Madagascar is going to become a developed nation, (jobs from doing population studies, CITES assessments, forest conservation/restoration, Madagascar chameleon farming and ranching to stop wild collecting) these jobs are most probably the way that country is going to become developed.
Fourth CITES is and does concern itself about issues with regards to problems about shipping/export problems and progress should continue to be made on that agenda. I have seen wholesalers facilitates operations from the 1990's and till now. Progress has been made over the past three decades.
Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich
One most chameleon species have got a high fecundity (an agriculture term and was talked about in the article) when a 1.0 individual is collected from the wild from a gravid 1.2 the individual is replaced by a theoretical 10-60 babies in a certain transect area. Rather than a chameleon completely remove from a population. Then some of those babies reach maturity and replace or more than replace the collected chameleon. Some species of chameleons can handle being collected and some cannot. More studies on the subject have to be done. Furcfer pardalis has shown that that species can handle being collected over the past 30 years.
Second now that Madagascar has a complete quota system. When/If a chameleon a chameleon species is being negatively collected from the hobby to the point of becoming an IUCN listed endangered sub species. That species quota can be made a remove or stopped exported as a CITES quota species. That stopping harm to overly threatened populations.
Third all these activities provides jobs for an impoverished nation. If Madagascar is going to become a developed nation, (jobs from doing population studies, CITES assessments, forest conservation/restoration, Madagascar chameleon farming and ranching to stop wild collecting) these jobs are most probably the way that country is going to become developed.
Fourth CITES is and does concern itself about issues with regards to problems about shipping/export problems and progress should continue to be made on that agenda. I have seen wholesalers facilitates operations from the 1990's and till now. Progress has been made over the past three decades.
Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich
